"The way you're killing his son? No. I don't know that. I don't know anything you say. Ever. —Boy. Brian—" Caith moved near the cage, shifting ever so carefully. "I'm your brother, Brian, hear me? I've come for you. I'll try to get you out of here."
There was no response. Perhaps the boy had passed beyond all wit. Caith reached with his left hand through the bars without looking, the sword in his right hand, his eyes upon Sliabhin and his men. He felt a hand grip his then, a small hand all thin and weak and desperate. In the same moment Sliabhin's men shifted like so many wolves in a pack.
"You face me," Caith said softly, looking Sliabhin in the eyes. "Come on, man, draw your sword. What's one killing more?"
A small shake of the head. "I'd not kill you."
"Why not? I'll wager you were never sure—never sure which of us was yours; or if either was. Or ever will be. Isn't that what eats at you? Oh, aye, you loved my mother. You wanted her to yourself, even more than you loved her—and still you'll never know."
Steel hissed its way to light. Sliabhin drew, quietly.
"That's what I wanted," Caith said. He disengaged his left hand with a gentle tug. The boy clutched at it a second time, hampering him. But beyond Sliabhin the Sidhe Nuallan had lifted his head, and watched it all unfold with a gaze bright and perilous as fire.
Nuallan's chains suddenly fell, still locked, and clinked against the stone as Nuallan-Raghallach stood free and unfettered, as he burned like daylight in the murk of the cellar. Panic broke among the men.
Some turned toward one of them, some toward the other, in utter confusion; but Caith stood his ground, whirled when he had won a scant moment and slashed and kicked at the cage the bars of which had begun to bud and leaf inexplicably and to swell and burst their bindings. "Come out!" Caith shouted at Brian, turning to hold the rest at dubious swords' point, having now to circle to keep stalkers from his flank and from the boy. What the boy did then he could not know. His eyes were all for Sliabhin, for his purpose, for what he had come to do.
"Nuallan," Caith said hoarsely, desperately, "the boy. Dubhain promised."
Light burst. The Sidhe was not where or what he had been; Nuallan was beside him like a glare of light while men flinched and shielded their eyes. There came a boy's faint sob. "I have him," Nuallan said. "I leave you—to solve it all—mac Sliabhin."
Then was darkness, or the parting of the light, as if light had gone out in his soul as well and left him only the horror, the men, his father closing on him, having one hate now and one focus of their malice.
Caith seized the brazier one-handed, overturned it across their path, hurling red coals and irons across the planks. He kicked a bubbling oilpot and its tripod after it and fled, up the stairs.
"Dubhain!" Caith cried, desperate, half-prayer, half-curse. Steps rang close behind him—he whirled, spitted the man that came at him in the torchlight, and gazed on Sliabhin's dying face.
"Patricide," said Sliabhin, holding to Caith, clutching at his clothes, at the tartan of Dun Mhor, "patricide, twice as damned as I."
Caith freed himself, hearing the shrieks of burning men below, seeing the whole stairwell flared up from beneath, aleap with flame and horror. A burning man raced up toward him, mad with pain: that man he killed over Sliabhin's corpse, and turned, gasping for breath, to race stumbling up the stairs, sword in hand.
Other guards were coming down. Caith met them in the hellish light, hewed past them, one and the other, while they were still amazed at what came at them, dark amid the glare of fire. He trod on their bodies and ran, up into the hall, toward the door, where two more guards made their rush at him.
One he killed, and rushed past the other out into the drizzle and the glare of shielded torches. All about him the alarm dinned—help, fire, assault!
"Kill him," someone shouted. "Watch the gate!" another.
Caith ran; that was all he knew to do. He ran splashing through the rain-soaked yard with his side aching and blood binding his hand to the hilt of his sword. Before him he saw the gates were sealed; and in front of those gates a shining rider sat a horse whose mane itself was light. The boy Brian was a shadow in that rider's arms.
"Nuallan!" Caith cried.
He did not expect help. He stumbled forward and caught himself as the horse leapt into motion away from him and passed through the sealed gates as if they had been no more than air.
"Brian! Brother!" It was all his hope fleeing him, in Sidhe hands—in their hands, who could bargain a man's soul out of his body. The Sidhe had no pity in them.
"There he is!" someone shouted behind him. Caith gave only half a look and ran along the wall, trapped, whirling to kill a man as he went, still dealing murder with the tears mingling with the rain on his face and blinding him. He loathed all that he had done, loathed all that he was, all his bargains with fate and the Sidhe; and still he went on killing those who wished to end him. He ran, and they hunted him along the wall by the stables.
"Alive!" someone screamed, full of hate. "Take him alive!" That put a last burst of speed into him, rawest desperation to evade the corner they drove him for.
The beat of hooves sounded at his right as if it were coming from somewhere far, and a cold wind blew on him, and a black horse crossed his path, moving slowly like a dream, its eyes gleaming red within the darkness. It offered him its back; it wanted him.
That was the bargain, then. It was better than Dun Mhor offered, the phooka-ride, that should end in numbing cold water, some lightless riverbottom, to drift among the reeds. Caith clenched the black thick mane in his fists and flung himself astride the phooka, felt it stretch itself to run in earnest and saw the wall coming up before them—but it was only mist about them when they met it.
They were away then, with the wind rushing past them. He heard the phooka hoofbeats like the beating of his heart, felt the spatter of the mist like ice against his face and his neck and his arms. On and on they ran, and the cold went to his bones. When he looked over his shoulder he saw an orange glow, a jagged ruin, that was Dun Mhor, which was all his hope and his hate and every reason that had ever driven him. It sank in ashes now.
He laid his head against the phooka's neck, buried his face in the darkness of Dubhain's mane and let the black Sidhe bear him where he would, having had enough of blood, of fire, and of life. The rain washed him, soaked him through till he was numb; leaves and branches began at last to sweep over him, passing like the touch of hands and the memory of rain as wet leaves brushed his hands and head.
Abruptly he was falling, falling; but as before it was not a stream that met him, but solid ground, an impact that drove the wind from him.
Caith sprawled, dazed, and it was a moment before he could get his arms beneath him and lever himself to his knees, expecting phooka-laughter and phooka-humor and all the wickedness they could do.
Sidhe-light broke about him, a pale glow. Sidhe stood all about him, bright and terrible Fair Folk. One was Nuallan; and there were a score of others. Their horses waited beyond the circle, themselves an unbearable light in the darkness.
A small boy lay among them, sprawled unconscious on the grass at their feet and, seeing that, Caith found his strength again and tried to get up and go to Brian; but he could not. Nuallan moved between and a chill came on Caith's limbs that took the strength from his legs. He got to the Sidhe all the same, and grasped at his shining cloak: but it passed through his fingers and he fell to his knees.
"I'd not do that," Dubhain said, squatting nearby, his eyes aglow and wicked.
"Let him go," Caith shouted at the chill and mocking faces above, about him. "Let my brother go. I never rescued him to give him to you."
"But you didn't save him," Nuallan said. "Safe and sound, you said. Was that not the bargain, mac Sliabhin? Would you ask more now?"
Dubhain drew back his lips in a half-grin, half-grimace. "Listen," the phooka said, "don't be reckless. You have the curse on you. It's all yours now. Didn't we help you? We've more than kept o
ur bargain. What else have you to give up, beyond your scruples? Think, man."
Caith managed a laugh, despairing as it was; then the laugh died in his throat, for the Sidhe glow brightened, showing him where he was, in a small clearing at a ford, where a sleeping company sat sleeping horses, heads bowed, bodies slumped, and the rain on them like jewels, as if time had stopped here and all the world were wrapped in nightmares.
"They should not have come here," said one of the Sidhe.
"No man should," said another.
"Now, mac Sliabhan, what will you pay," asked Nuallan, "to free the boy from us?"
Caith turned a bleak look on him, blinking in the rain. "Why, whatever I have, curse you. Take me. Let the rest go. All of them. I'm worth it. Isn't that what you've most wanted—to have one of Sliabhin's blood in your reach? And I'm far more guilty than the boy."
"You've not asked what the curse is," said Nuallan.
"You'll tell me when it suits you."
"Torment," said Nuallan, "to suffer torment all your days, mac Sliabhin—the boy, oh, aye, he's free. We accept your offering; he's no matter to us. The curse is yours alone."
"Then let him go!"
"I shall do more than that," Nuallan said; and bent, the tallest and fairest of all his fellows, and gathered the boy into his arms ever so gently, as if he had been no weight at all. He bore him to the sleeping riders; and the light about him fell on their faces. It was Raghallach foremost among them; and Cinnfhail's shieldman; and others of Gleatharan. And Nuallan set Brian in Raghallach's arms on the saddlebow, sleeping child in the keeping of the sleeping rider, whose face was bruised and battered with wounds from Dun Mhor's cellars.
"What have you done?" Caith asked in horror. "Sidhe, what have you done?"
"Ah," said Nuallan, looking at him, "but they will get on well, don't you think?—Raghallach will remember a thing he never did; but it will seem to him he was a great hero. And so the boy will remember the brave warrior who bore him away and took him safe to Gleatharan. Oh, aye, they'll wake at dawn, and think themselves all heroes; and so men will say of them forever. Is that not generous of me?"
Caith let out a breath, having gotten to his feet. He clenched his fists. But it looked apt, the tired small boy, asleep in safety, the honest man who sheltered him. "You could make him forget the rest," he said. "You've nothing left to trade."
"For your own kindness' sake—if it exists."
"I've done that—already." The Sidhe all were fading, leaving dark about, and the gleam of phooka eyes. But Nuallan took Caith's arm. "Come with me," he said.
10
Caith was alone then, left utterly alone in a place where the sun blinded him, and when his eyes had forgotten the dark the light seemed soft. There were fields and hills—fair and green, spangled with gold flowers. Herds of horses, each the equal of Dathuil, ran free, and trees grew straight and fair on the hillsides.
No one hindered him. Caith wandered this beautiful place waiting to die; and then taking comfort in it, for it seemed no heart could grieve here long except for greater causes than he possessed. He felt thirst; he slaked it at a stream over which trees bent under the weight of their fruit.
The water washed the pain from him. It healed his heart and when he washed his face in it he felt stronger than he had ever been.
He considered the fruit and risked it, growing reckless and fey and calm all at once, as if no death could touch him here, nor any grievous thing. Only then he felt afraid, for he felt a presence before he saw it, and looked up.
"It gives the Sight," said Nuallan. . . for Nuallan was suddenly there, astride Dathuil, bright as the setting sun. Dathuil dipped his head to drink, and the Sidhe slid lightly down to stand on the grassy margin.
"And what will you ask for that, Sidhe?"
"Nothing here has price."
Caith thought on that, taking what leisure he had to think. Every saying of the Sidhe seemed tangled, full of riddles, and he felt unequal to them, and small. "I've been waiting for you," he said.
"For the curse. Oh, aye, that matter. But it is settled. Or will be." The Sidhe looked less terrible than before. There was pity in his eyes. "I like you well, man. You bargain well—for a man. Would you know the truth—whose son you are?"
"Sliabhin's."
"The boy is Gaelan's. Half brother to you. And innocent. Come." The tall Sidhe knelt beside the brook. "Look. Look into the stream."
Caith looked, kneeling cautiously on the margin— and his heart turned in him, so that he almost fell, for it was the night sky he was looking into with the day still above him. "Ah!" he said and lost his balance.
Nuallan caught his arm and drew him back safe on the margin. "Nay, nay, that were a death neither man nor Sidhe should wish. An endless one. Look. Is there a thing you would wish to see? These waters show you anything dear to your heart. Would you see your brother?"
"Aye," Caith murmured, foreknowing a wounding. The Fair Folk were terrible even in their kindness.
The stars gave way to green hills, to Dun Gorm in the sunlight. A boy raced on a fine white horse, the wind in his hair, untrammeled joy in his eyes—
"Is that Brian? But he's older—"
"He's fourteen—Ah, you're thinking of others now—oh, aye, Raghallach—Brian follows him about; and Deirdre—she's grown very fair, has she not? Like Cinnfhail's own son, Brian is; and his queen's, the darling of their fading years, he is. The lad remembers very little of that year, only that it was terrible; he remembers fire and the long ride, and Raghallach bringing him away—it's thorough hero-worship. He doesn't remember you at all, save as one of Raghallach's men."
Caith bit his lip. "Good."
"Would you have it? Would you have what Brian has?"
"There's cost."
"In their world, always."
"His cost."
"Aye."
"No. I won't." Caith kept looking, until the image faded, until the abyss was back. He stood up as Nuallan did, there upon the brink. The gulf was below him again, the fall so easy from this place. He turned his back to it, there on the very edge, waiting as Nuallan set his hand lightly on his arm.
"Go your way," said Nuallan.
"Go?"
"Just go. You're free."
Nuallan let fall his hand. Caith turned away from the void, walked a little distance in disbelief, and then the rage got through. He turned back again, shaking with his anger. "Curse you, curse you to play games with me! You're no different than his sort, Sliabhin's, Hagan's. I've known that sort all my life. Is it your revenge—to laugh at me?"
"Oh, not to laugh, mac Sliabhin. Not to laugh." Nuallan's voice was full of pity and vast sorrow. "Torment is your curse; and I know none worse nor gentler than to have drunk and eaten here—and to know it forever irrecoverable. I have spared you what I could, my friend. . ."
"Nuallan—" Caith began.
But the dark of the Sidhe-woods of Gleann Gleatharan was about him again, and the cold, and mortality, in which he shivered. He had the ache of his wounds back; and the gnawing of hunger and remorse in his belly.
"A curse on you!" he cried in the night of his own stained world.
He heard only a moving in the brush, and saw there the gleam of two eyes like coals. Dubhain was there, in boy's shape, a naked ruffian again.
"I am still with you," the phooka said. "This is my place."
Caith turned his shoulder to Dubhain and walked on, lost in this mortal woods and knowing it. He walked, until he knew that he was alone.
The visions crowded in on him, too vivid for a while: the vision of Dun Gorm that he had seen; and his brother growing up—but never must he go there, nor to the ruins of Dun Mhor, where he was a murderer and worse. His new Sight told him this, not acute, but dull, like a wound that hurt when he touched it, when he thought of the things he wanted and knew them lost.
There was no life for him but banditry, and regret, and remembering forever, remembering a land where everything was fair and clean.
<
br /> "I'll give you a ride," the phooka offered in his dreams, on the next dark night when Caith slept fitfully, his belly gnawed with hunger. "O man, you need not be stubborn about it. I like you well. So does Nuallan. He did let you go—"
—the phooka took more solid shape, seated on a stump as Caith dreamed he waked. "—O man, don't you know Nuallan could have done far worse? He repented the curse. He wished it unsaid. But a Sidhe's word binds him. Especially his kind."
But there was no comfort in Caith's dreams, when he dreamed of the beauty he had seen, and of ease of pain; and when he rose up in the morning and had the miles always before him.
"I'll bear ye," the phooka offered wistfully.
"No," Caith said, and walked on, stubborn in his loss. Where he was going next he had no idea. He looked down from the height of the green hills and saw Gleann Gleatharan, and Dun Gorm with its herds fair and its fields wide; but he came no nearer to it than this, to stand on its hills and want it as he wanted that land he saw only in his dreams.
"I am your friend," the phooka said, whispering from behind him.
It was well a man should have one friend. Caith held his cloak about him against the wind and kept walking, passing by Dun Gorm and all it had of peace.
"Come," he whispered to the wind. "Come with me, phooka, if you like."
VII
The ship approaches dock. The star glows in the window, red and so dim they do not need the visual shielding. We can look on its spotted face directly, if not for long. Its light momentarily dyes the table, the ice in our glasses, the crystal liquid, the bubbles that rise and burst. Then the ship's gentle rotation carries the view away.
There are no planets in this system. Only ice and iron. And a starstation.
Bags are packed. Most of the passengers are leaving. Soon the take-hold will sound.
"Packed?" I ask.
"Yes," you say. And gaze at the unfamiliar stars, thinking what thoughts I do not guess. "They're going to have to ship that poor fellow home. Next ship back. He just can't take it out here."
The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh Page 49
